One of the challenges of being a Boston suburbanite is keeping nature in your daily life. Sure, there's lots of yard mowing and weed pulling and always something to trim back, but that's all about attempting to tame the incredible profusion of growing things that pop up everywhere, threatening the integrity of your roof and working their way into your foundation. It's nice to let go now and again and see what happens if you just let something grow. Now, there's really not many places left where you can see what happens when nature is allowed to do it's own business without a bunch of folks coming along and taking over the joint. New England, being pretty densely populated, is one of the toughest place in the States in this regard. There are some oasises, however, and the most convenient from Boston is the White Mountains of New Hampshire. About two and a half hours north from Beantown, the White Mountain National Forest - a swatch of mountainous terrain nearly 800,000 acres in size, is protected from development by the government. It's surprisingly impressive land, comprising of several wildernesses - land untouched other then for recreational or scientific use - and most of the White Mountains, a rugged stretch of the Appalachian Mountains. Every summer, my brother and I start off the recreational year in New England - really only about half the year from mid-Spring when it gets warm enough to exercise outside to later fall when the rains and wind force you inside - with a trip up to the WMNF. In 2007,we took on the (Border Of) the Pemigewasset Wilderness, from Crawford Notch in the East over to the Bond range in the West and back.
I didn't think this was a particularly tough part of the National Forest, since it's farther to the south and didn't climb any mountains of which I had heard before. And a good chunk of our hike was on relatively flat land, taking the the Appalachian Trail from Mt. Wiley up the Zealand Notch. We basically followed the Appalachian Trail all the way from 302 in Crawford Notch to Mt. Guyot, with a .8 mile detour to the Guyot Campgrounds between Guyot and Bond where we spent the night. However, one thing that nature will always teach you is never to underestimate her, and what we thought was going to be a relatively easy hike turned out to be anything but.
Confidence before Zeacliff...
The week before the big trip, the weather people warned of rain, and, sure enough, the air was cool and wet when we jumped into the car in Ashland around 6:30 Saturday morning. During the drive up to New Hampshire, the rain got progressively worse; by the time we hit Franconia Notch, it was really downpouring. Not an auspicious start to the weekend. Chad, my brother, and Eric, a friend of both of ours, started to debate if we really wanted to do this: did we really want to spend our entire weekend lugging heavy backpacks up mountains in the pouring rain? As were psyching ourselves up for it, Chad admitted that he brought no rain gear (!), and so in a huge gaper move, we were forced to stop off in Lincoln so he could buy a $3.00 emergency poncho. The fact that Chad even thought about wearing this ridiculous piece of red plastic spoke to the reality of our situation: we were going to get extremely wet.
Amazingly, the AT trailhead of Rte 302 was dry at 10:30, so we quickly mounted up and headed up the notch to Mt. Wiley. Wow. Not having really concentrated on the start of the hike (having focused on our exact loop once inside), we were not really prepared for Crawford Notch. But it's no joke - we climbed about 1000 feet in the first mile and a half, all while getting our woods legs underneath us. This is what I mean when I say the Whites are rugged. Each and every trail will surprise you in some way. The humidity of the air, the slick trail from the recent rains, and the quick altitude climb soon took its toll: Eric vomited right before the branch with the Kedron Flume Trail. Not a problem, though; a trooper, he jumped right back up and we were at the base of Mt. Wiley before we knew it. We were making good time and, luckily, had encountered no serious rain, just an ominously dark atmosphere under the birch canopy and an occasional rumble of thunder over the next ridgeline.
From here, it was easy going all down Zealand Notch, and we made really good time, stopping off at Thoreau Falls around 1:30. The falls are an impressive flume in the North Fork and was a great place to rest and splash our heads. One strange thing was the rustish color of the water. I'm sure it's due to some element in the ground that seeps into the water, but really have no idea, so we avoided swimming in favor of enjoying the view across the valley to our destination. Both Mt. Bond and Guyot were clouded in, but a strong wind swept the clouds along so that the view was consistently changing and morphing in front of us. Combine that with the silence of the forest and the dull roar of the river and I can see why Thoreau Falls is such a popular destination. But we had many miles to go before we slept, so we started off again, reveling in the fact that by the time we broke out out of the forest into the open ledge below Whitehall's cliffs, the sun was consistently shining down on us. A wonderful feeling after being in a dank forest all day.
It was in the clearing looking down on Zealand Notch that we made the decision to leave the AT and tackle Mt. Zeacliff's southern face via the Zeacliff trail, rather then continuing to follow the AT to the Zealand Hut and then up Zeacliff's backside. We really should have known it was going to be trouble when the trail descended 800 ft to the Whitewall Brook before starting up to the peak. But by then the decision was made, so we filled up our water bottles in the river, nodded to a couple and their dog (if a dog could do it, how hard could it be?), and started the climb.
While i'm not in the best shape, and my cardio load may have taken a hit after I had my son, i'm not a slouch - a weekend warrior, I can hold my own. After all, Eric and Chad do triathlons, and I've always kept pace with them. But Zeacliff kicked my ass. Around 1500 vertical feet in 1.4 miles. With our heavy, overnight backpacks. Yikes.
We immediately split up, Chad in front, Eric behind, and myself in the middle; I joked afterwards that "We all needed to handle that mountain in our own way." And that's what we did: Chad, blazing ahead as fast as he could, thinking of a 140 mile bike ride he's doing out to Provincetown in two weeks, myself working as fast as I could, and Eric, carrying a HUGE bag and having stomach issues, who actually claims to have blacked out for a moment during a particularly relaxing rest stop. All I remember at the end is taking 20 steps or so straight up, pulling myself along with using trees and rocks as I could, before having to stop and wait for minute, feeling my heart pounding and gasping for full bodied breaths. The pathetic picture to the right gives you a sense of how I felt. But we all made it, and took a nice break at the top to normalize before moving on.
... and a rough time climbing up it
At the top of Zeacliff we headed west on the Twinway. This trail follows the ridgeline from Zeacliff up to Mt. Zealand and then over to Mt. Guyot, at 4580 ft, the high point of our hike. Now that we were up around 4000 feet, the trail worked its way though a dense evergreen forest, punctuated with patches of Birch, 3.2 miles up to the treeless peak of Guyot. It's rugged climbing (in the WMNF, all of the trails above 4000 feet are rough), and while we certainly weren't moving as fast as we were before Zeacliff, we made decent time, making the peak of Mt. Guyot at about 5:30. Amazingly, other then a misting or two, we hadn't been rained on at all, and so we enjoyed views of the misty valleys on either side of us. Beneath us at one point, we watched a group of whispy clouds ride the winds up the valley. The atmosphere was eerie, like a harbor at dusk: the clouds swallowed up what little noise there was, leaving only the cool, wet breeze, the thin mountain air, and a cool grayish-blue light to frame the amazing 270 degree views all around us. After enjoying this for a few minutes, we turned onto the Bondcliff Trail and, exhausted at this point, stumbled down the last mile or so to the Guyot Shelter. We were fortunate enough to get the last tenting platform; it's the only non-hut camping stie for for a huge chunk of the AT in the Whites. (Most of the hiking in the White Mountains require you stay in AMC huts with lots of other people, not always the most pleasant experience). If you check out the map, you'll see the the border of the Pemigewasset Wilderness accepting a narrow strip of the WMNF for the sole reason of allowing this campground.
Darkness was settling in, so we quickly set up camp. Eric started dinner: the man wasn't packing a 70 pound bag for nothing! He made an entire box of mashed potatoes, four packages of seal-packed Indian food, a box of Macaroni and Cheese (with some chicken, my sole contribution), and many other snacks I can't even remember. Basically, we stuffed ourselves silly (although Chad, as usual, proceeded to eat the most food - the guys just a bottomless pit). Right before hitting the sack, Chad and Eric decided we needed to hang a bear bag, which of course none of us had packed, so we stuffed all of our food into a plastic shopping bag and basically suspended it right off of a tree next to our tent: the worlds most absurd bear bag!
